Celebrating Father’s Day Without Dad

My Dad was everything a girl could hope for—tall, dark, handsome and crazy about me. And he held the number one attribute on my little kid scorecard: he was a smooth dancer, smiling as my miniature Mary Janes scuffed his wingtips. He was a gentle man and a gentleman, so kind that he’d drop an extra quarter in the toll booth collector basket for the driver in line behind him.

Dad never went to college but I knew he was smart because he never talked to my brother Jack or me in baby talk. “Don’t gesture with your utensils,” he’d say. “Don’t yawn audibly!” Dad even said “shan’t” instead of “shall not.” No other Dad on the block did that.

Though I idolized my Dad, I knew my Mom had first dibs. Dad was so in love with Mom that he used to put rivets in his hat that spelled TGFM, Thank God for Mary. His other acronym, used to defuse any small family scuffle, was “BD. Blame Daddy.” Dad spoiled me for what to expect in a husband. (Thank God I lucked out when I met Joe, though I doubt he’ll be putting TGFML on his baseball caps anytime soon.)

When we were young, our family would escape to a tiny cabin at a South Jersey lake—no hot water or shower, but the fun of our very own outhouse. After dinner, we’d all sit on a beat up red sofa on the screened porch. Dad would put his arms around us and we’d all belt out “You Are My Sunshine” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” But when Dad launched into “Carolina Moon,” we didn’t know the words so we just let him sing to the night stars in his croon-y Perry Como style. Mom would hold his hand and smile.

Year after year, I watched my Dad love Mom with a passion even as she weakened with a rare blood disease that would finally take her life.

With her gone, I tried to be there for Dad. I’d visit him every month in Florida and I’d sit in Mom’s recliner alongside his and we’d watch his favorite Seinfeld reruns. Dad had suffered two strokes, so he didn’t talk as much but his vocabulary never slacked off. During a speech therapy exercise, I asked him to repeat, “I feel sad” and he slowly formed the words, “I…feel…lu-gu-bri-ouuuusss.”

But an MRI revealed something I couldn’t fix—terminal brain and kidney cancer. I brought Dad back up north so Jack and I could help him feel comfortable. One night, after failing miserably in an attempt to give him morphine, I ran out into the dark, crying, “I’m his daughter, not his doctor.” When I pulled myself together and returned, Dad was resting on a red leather couch set up for his frequent and now, extended naps. Curled on the couch, nearly 92, he looked almost childlike. “Daddy, does this sofa remind you of our cabin at the lake?” He grinned with the memory. I whispered, “Do you remember when we used to sing together?” He looked at me and then slowly my Dad started to sing, so softly that I had to bend close to hear. “Carolina Moon, keep shining, shining on the one who waits for me. Carolina Moon, I’m pining, pining for the place I long to be.”

Dad was missing Mom. Letting him go to her was the hardest thing I have ever done. Today, Father’s Day doesn’t make me sad. It only brings back memories–of starry skies, his strong arms around us, his voice clear and strong in the night. I can hear him still. And I know this for sure. I will always be his girl.

Mary Lou Quinlan is the author of the New York Times bestselling book “The God Box.”